1. Technical Field
The inventive arrangements relate generally to methods and apparatus providing advanced operating features for programs recorded on disc media, for example recordable digital video discs, hard drives and magneto optical discs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various devices have been developed to enable consumers to record video and/or audio programs for later presentation. Such devices include tape recorders, video cassette recorders, recordable compact discs, and most recently, recordable digital video discs (DVD). Hard drives and magneto optical discs have also been used.
A DVD that can be recorded on only once, and thereafter is essentially a DVD read only memory, is referred to by the acronym DVD-R. The acronym DVD-R is also generally used to refer to write-once, or record-once, technology. Several formats are available for DVD's to be recorded on, erased and re-recorded; that is, overwritten or rewritten. These are referred to by the acronyms DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD+RW. As of this time no uniform industry standard has been adopted. The acronyms DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD+RW are also used generally to refer to the respective rewritable technologies. Reference herein to rewritable DVD technology, devices and methods is generally intended to encompass all of the standards which are now being used, as well as those which may be developed in the future.
Once video is recorded onto a disc, a user may desire to change the speed at which the video is displayed. To meet this demand, most conventional DVD recorders are designed to playback the video at different speeds. For example, these devices can generally playback video at fast-forward or slow-motion speed. These playback variations are commonly referred to as trick modes. Typically, a DVD recorder performs these trick modes by repeating or deleting one or more pictures contained in the recorded video after the video has been read from the disc. For example, in the slow motion trick mode, a DVD recorder can repeat every picture from a particular portion of recorded video to give the viewer the impression that the video is being displayed at one-half its normal speed. To produce fast-forward playback, the DVD recorder can delete one or more pictures from the video during playback.
While trick modes enable a user to view recorded video at different speeds, the video is not permanently altered by the process. If the video is displayed at a later time, then the user must initiate another trick mode to view the video at a different speed. Significantly, however, many users may wish to permanently change the playback speed of a particular portion of video by modifying the video once the video has been recorded onto a disc. Such a process can permit speed variations during playback without the user invoking a trick mode command. Unfortunately, several significant obstacles exist that make editing recorded video in such a fashion impracticable. Specifically, the space occupied by the original video is not large enough to store the pictures that must be repeated in order to produce slow motion playback. In addition to spatial limitations, repeating pictures on the disc can interfere with the conventional picture structure of the video, which can degrade the display quality of the video during playback.
Modifying recorded video to produce fast-forward playback, however, is not affected by the spatial limitations that impede slow-motion editing. This is because fast-forward editing merely deletes pictures form the recorded video. Nevertheless, creating fast-forward video, similar to slow-motion modification, also negatively impacts the conventional picture structure of the video. Thus, what is needed is a device that can change the playback speed of recorded video yet can overcome the spatial and structural limitations associated with such recorded video.